The Land of Frozen Suns Part 16

"Well," I replied, "I must say I don't altogether like his fatherly manner. He makes me uncomfortable."

"Nevertheless," Barreau declared, "he has taken a fancy to you. He's human. And seeing it's not your fight, you'd better not break off short on that account. Better not antagonize him. It's different with me; I have no choice."

Influenced more or less by Barreau's suggestion, I suppose, I found myself giving a.s.sent that very afternoon when Montell asked me to the cabin for supper and a session at cribbage. Over the meal and the subsequent card-game he was so genial, so very much like other big easy-going men that I had known, I could scarcely credit him as cold-bloodedly scheming to defraud and, if necessary, murder another man. Somehow, without any logical reason, I had always a.s.sociated fat men, especially big, fat men, with the utmost good-nature, with a sort of rugged straightforward uprightness that frowned on anything that savored of unfair advantage. I could not quite fathom Mr. Simon Montell-nor George Barreau, either, so far as that goes.

Shortly after that, at the close of an exceeding bitter day, an Indian came striding down the Sicannie to the post. When the guard at the big gate let him in his first word was for the "White Chief," as Barreau was known among the men of the lodges. Ben Wise came shouting this at the door of our cabin, and we followed Ben to the store. The Indian shook hands with Barreau. Then he drew his blanket coat closer about him and delivered himself of a few short guttural sentences. Barreau stood looking rather thoughtful when the copper-skinned one had finished. He asked a few questions in the native tongue, receiving answers as brief.

And after another period of consideration he turned to me.

"Crow Feathers is sick," he said. "Pneumonia, I should judge, by this fellow's description of the symptoms. The chances are good that he'll be dead by the time I get there-if he isn't already. The medicine man can't help him, so old Three Wolves has sent for me, out of his sublime faith in my ability to do anything. I can't help him, but I'll have to go, as a matter of policy. Do you want to come along, Bob? It won't be a long jaunt, and it will give you some real snowshoe practice."

I embraced the opportunity without giving him a chance to reconsider which he showed signs of doing later in the evening. Curiously enough Montell also attempted to dissuade me from the trip.

"What's the use?" he argued. "You'll likely get your fingers or your feet frozen. It's a blamed poor time of the year to go trapesin' around the country. You better stay here where there's houses and fires."

The cold and other disagreeable elements didn't look formidable enough to deter me, however; I wanted something to break the monotony. A trip to Three Wolves' camp in mid-winter appealed very strongly to me, and I turned a deaf ear to Montell's advice, and held Barreau strictly to the proposal which he evinced a desire to withdraw.

That evening we got the dog harness ready, and rigged up a toboggan for the trail, loading it with food, bedding, and a small, light tent. Two hours before daybreak we started. There was a moon, and the land spread away boldly under the silver flood, like a great, ghostly study in black and white.

All that day our Indian led us up the Sicannie. There was no need to use our snowshoes or to "break" trail, for we kept to the ice, and its covering of snow was packed smooth and hard as a macadam roadway. By grace of an early start and steady jogging we traversed a distance that was really a two days' journey, and at dusk the lodges of Three Wolves'

band loomed in the edge of a spruce grove. Then our Indian shook hands with Barreau and me, and swung off to the right.

"He says his lodge is over there in a draw," Barreau told me, when I asked the reason for that.

The dogs of the camp greeted us with shrill yapping, and two or three Indians came out. They scattered the yelping huskies with swiftly thrown pieces of firewood, and greeted Barreau gravely. After a mutual exchange of words Barreau vented a sharp exclamation.

"The devil!" he said, and followed this by stripping the harness from the dogs.

"What now?" I asked, as I bent over the leader's collar.

"You'll see in a minute," he answered briefly, and there was an angry ring in his voice.

The dogs freed and the toboggan turned on its side, he led the way to a lodge pointed out by one of the hunters. A head protruded. It was withdrawn as we approached, and some one within called out in Cree. And when we had inserted ourselves through the circular opening I echoed Barreau's exclamation. For sitting beside the fire which burned cheerfully in the center, was Crow Feathers himself, smoking his pipe like a man in the best of health. Nor was there any suggestion of illness in the voice he lifted up at our entrance. Barreau fired a question or two at him, and a look of mild interest overspread Crow Feathers' aquiline face as he answered.

"It was a plant all the way through," Barreau declared, sitting down and slipping off his mitts. "Three Wolves sent no message to me. Crow Feathers never was sick in his life."

"I wonder who's responsible?" said I. "Do Indians ever play practical jokes?"

He shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion. Crow Feathers' squaw pushed a pot of boiled venison before us, and some bannock, and we fell upon that in earnest. Not till we had finished and were fumbling for tobacco _did_ Barreau refer to our wild-goose chase again.

"I'd like to have speech with that red gentleman who led us up here," he said grimly. "It may be that Mr. Montell has unsheathed his claws in earnest. If he has, I'll clip them, and clip them short."

CHAPTER XVII-NINE POINTS OF THE LAW

A perceptible wind from out the east blew squarely in our teeth all the way down the Sicannie. Slight as it was, a man could no more face it steadily than he could hold his nostrils to sulphur fumes blown from a funnel. All day it held us back from our best speed. Time and again we were forced to halt in the lee of a wooded point, where with thres.h.i.+ng of arms we drove the sluggish blood back into our numbing finger-tips.

Twice the frost struck its fangs into my cheeks, despite the strap of rabbit fur that covered my face between eyes and mouth. Barreau rubbed the whitened places with snow till the returning blood stung like a searing iron. Twice I performed a like office for him. So it came that night had fallen when we lifted up our voices at the gate of the stockade. And while we waited for it to open, our dogs whining at the snarl of their fellows inside, some one in the glimmer behind us hailed the post in French. A minute later the frosty creak of snowshoes sounded near and a figure came striding on our track. As he reached us the gate swung open. A group of men stood just within. One held a lantern so that the light fell upon our faces-and, incidentally, their own. They were strangers, to the last man. Barreau ripped out an oath. For a second we surveyed each other. Then one of the men spoke to him who had come up with us:

"Is there aught afoot?" he asked, with a marked Scotch accent.

"Not that I have seen, Donald," the other replied.

"Then," said the first, speaking to Barreau, "come ye in an' put by your dogs. Dinna stand there as if ye looked for harm."

"I am very sure there will be no harm done us," Barreau drawled, unmoved in the face of this strange turn of affairs. "But I am of two minds about coming in."

The Scot shrugged his shoulders. "That's as ye like," he observed. "'Tis not for me tae compel ye. 'Tis merely the factor's word that if ye came, he desired speech wi' ye. Ye will find him noo at the store."

Barreau considered this a moment. "Lead the way then, old Bannockburn,"

he said lightly, "we will take our dog-team with us."

"Keep an eye to the rear, Bob," he muttered to me. "This may be a trap.

But we've got to chance it to find out how things stand."

I nodded acquiescence to this; for I myself craved to know how the thing had been brought to pa.s.s.

The group of men scattered. Save the Scot with the lantern, not one was in sight when Barreau halted the dogs and turned the toboggan on its side by the front of the store. Our lantern-bearer opened the door and stepped inside, motioning us to enter. My eyes swept the long room for sign of violent deeds. But there were none. The goods lay in their orderly arrangement upon the shelves. The same up-piled boxes and bales threw huge shadows to the far end. There was no change save in the men who stood by the fire. Instead of Montell warming his coat-tails before the crackling blaze, a thin-faced man stood up before the fire; a tall man, overtopping Barreau and myself by a good four inches. He bowed courteously, looking us over with keen eyes that were black as the long mustache-end he turned over and over on his forefinger. A thatch of hair white as the drifts that hid the frozen earth outside covered his head.

He might have been the colonel of a crack cavalry regiment-a leader of fighting men. His voice, when he spoke, bore a trace of the Gaul.

"Gentlemen," he greeted, "it is a very cold night outside. Come up to the fire."

He pushed a stool and a box forward with his foot and turned to a small, swarthy individual who had so far hovered in the background.

"Leave us now, Dufour," he said. "And you, Donald, come again in a half hour." "_Oui, M'sieu._" Dufour gathered up his coat and departed obediently, the Scot following.

As nonchalantly as if he were in the house of a friend Barreau drew his box up to the fire and sat down; thrust the parka hood back from his face and held his hands out to the blaze. But I noticed that he laid the rifle across his knees, and taking my cue from this I did the same when I sat down. A faint smile flitted across the tall man's features. He also drew a seat up to the fire on the opposite side of the hearth so that he faced us.

"It is to Mr. Barreau I speak, is it not?" he inquired politely.

"It is," Barreau acknowledged. "And you, I take it, are Factor Le Noir of King Charles' House."

"The Black Factor, as they call me-yes," he smiled. "I am glad to have met you, Mr. Barreau. You are a hardy man."

"I did not come seeking compliments," Barreau returned curtly. "Why are you here-you and your _voyageurs_, making free with another man's house?

And what have you done with Simon Montell and his daughter? and the forty-odd men that were here two days ago?"

"One thing at a time," Le Noir answered imperturbably. "Is it possible that you do not know of the arrangement which was made?"

"It is obvious that there was an arrangement," Barreau snorted. "What I would know is the manner of its carrying out."

"To be brief, then," the other said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, as if he measured out his words, "for a consideration Simon Montell has abandoned the field. While my Company permits no compet.i.tor in the trade, according to our charter, yet sometimes it is cheaper to buy than to fight."

Barreau's shoulders stiffened. "Your charter is a dead letter," he declared. "You know it as well as I. That, however, is beside the point.

You have made terms with Montell-but you have made none with me."

"Possession is nine points of the law," Le Noir returned tranquilly.

"Having bought we will now fight, if it be necessary. One does not pay twice for the same goods. Be wise, and seek redress from-well, if the fat man has tricked you, make _him_ pay."